of course, there's always something to fall in love with: asexual perspectives on pop culture and much more.

Wednesday, July 8, 2009

Things Asexuals Like: Doctor Who

This is what I think I know about Doctor Who: It's a TV show on the BBC in which people time-travel in a phone booth (what's a phone booth?). The show has run for an extremely long time but the title character is most recently played by David Tennant, who people seem to find quite the asexy beast. Knowing as little as I do about Doctor Who, I seem to be in a small minority among asexuals. WHO is Doctor Who? Is he supposed to be asexual? Why do we like him so much? Remember when everyone was talking about "The first rule of Fight Club", even people who have never seen or read Fight Club? That's what it's like to be an asexual who's never seen Doctor Who. Even so, I can identify if you have a Doctor Who Livejournal icon and I might be able to pick David Tennant out of a lineup, probably because he's appeared multiple times in the "Who do you find beautiful/handsome?" thread on AVEN. As you can see, Doctor Who appears to be part of our culture, whether we're watchers of the show or not.

The influence of this show might be restricted to AVENites in BBC broadcasting area. Was the show exported to other countries? The conclusion may be that Britons make much noise, since they are less than a quarter of AVEN population, according to Survey 2008.

As an asexual fan of Doctor Who, I'd like to point out that the character's name is not in fact Doctor Who - just The Doctor. Several of his actors did play him as asexual, though it seems like he's becoming more and more heterosexual in the recent series.

Either your TV habits are radically different from ours, which could be true, or the only reasonable option (in order to increase the public of the show) among listed is openly broadcasting delayed seasons of the show.

I can't believe we've never spoken about David Tennant! He's my hero and I love him to pieces!!

The Doctor is hard to explain... he's kinda asexual and also kind of celibate. In the recent episodes, he has fallen in love with one of his female companions. But he doesn't view sexual relationships as a high priority. Unfortunately, his flirtatious nature sends mixed signals to his companions.

We also know that The Doctor is 900 years old and afraid of loving a human girl, because she would grow old and die in a short time span. The Doctor used to have a family; wife and children. But they died during The Great Time War.

Overall, he's asexy because he prefers the heroic nomad life to a calm domesticated one.

Someone here mentioned the Doctor becoming more "hetero". I don't think that's fair. There are implications that he doesn't have a gender preference romantically. But even if he isn't entirely asexual, his sex drive is apparently very very very low.

Someone said the Doctor is becoming increasingly "hetero". I don't think that's true. He doesn't seem to have a romantic gender preference. Rose isn't sufficient to be able to tell. (He has had a male-male kiss here and there.)

I don't think the Doctor is entirely asexual, but his sex drive is so low, he may as well be!

Yes, It is a police box - not a phone box - I did see a police box up in York recently (or was it Edinburgh??) Although I don't know if it was in working order or was just there for show?

I do think David Tennant is dishy (speaking as someone who doesn't experience Sexual or Romantic Attraction but I do have an opinion as to what I find pleasing to the eye).

However, for me the REAL Dr Who was Tom Baker. For every generation of Dr Who fans, there is the REAL Dr Who - normally the one they grew up with. There's about 12 months in age between me and David Tennant, and I am sure he considers Tom Baker to be his Dr Who too!

I´m a big fan of the classic Doctor Who from the 60s and 70s (especially of the great Patrick Troughton) but I haven´t seen a single episode with David Tennant. I just don´t care for the new ones or even the 80s episodes, the Who story somehow ends for me when Tom Baker left 1981.

The classic Doctor was indeed completely asexual, even between his male and female companions (someone remembers Zoe and Jamie from the 60s?) no sexual relationship existed. This was of course also because it was more or less considered as childrens program, but even the more adult and philosophical stories with Tom Baker always showed him as asexual. I liked that.

BTW, I´m from Germany so fans of the classic Doctor exist even outside of the UK ;-).

I've been watching Doctor Who since I was five. I grew up with Tom Baker but he's only my second favorite, sorry. I prefer Jon Pertwee and was very saddened by his death.

Anyway, back to the subject of the thread. I never gave the Doctor's orientation much thought, which is unsurprising since I'm asexual. I don't, however, think the fact that the Doctor fell in love with Rose is proof that he is no longer asexual. Love doesn't require sexual attraction, after all.